1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an electrical connector assembly, and particularly to a stacked electrical connector assembly provided with a common housing.
2. Description of Related Art
A computer is required to provide connectors at input/output ports, which are usually mounted on a main printed circuit board (PCB) thereof, to mate with corresponding complementary connectors of peripheral devices for signal transmission therebetween. In order to sufficiently utilize limited area of the main PCB, the electrical connectors are usually arranged in a stacked manner. There exists in the art a stacked jack socket connector assembly mounted on a printed circuit board for transmitting audio signals from jack plugs to corresponding circuitries on the printed circuit board. Such stacked jack socket connector assembly is disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,695,116, 5,709,554 and 6,116,959. Each of the stacked jack socket connector assemblies disclosed in the patents mentioned above comprises at least two dielectric housings each defining an axial cavity therein, a plurality of sets of spring contacts respectively received in the housings with spring contacting portions thereof exposed in the cavities of the housings for electrically connecting with jack plugs, and plurality of transition electrically connected with the spring contacts.
Current trend inclines to use more miniaturized components aimed at high integration. The dielectric housings of each stacked jack socket connector assembly mentioned above are separately manufactured and then assembled together. This structure does not accord with the current trend and there still remains room for decreasing the occupied space of such a stacked jack socket connector assembly. A unitary connector assembly having multiple rows and columns of mating ports, either aligned or offset, is desired. Furthermore, each dielectric housing of the stacked jack socket connector assembly is preferable to have a different color from that of other housings for easy to distinguish in use. However, the colored housings are relatively costly.
Hence, an improved stacked electrical connector assembly is highly to overcome the disadvantages of the related art.